


Forewarned: Inaba

by VampireBadger



Series: Forewarned is Forearmed [6]
Category: Persona 4, Persona 5
Genre: AU of an AU, Akira grows up in Inaba AU, F/M, Like this series isn't already complicated enough, Persona 5 but in Inaba, why am I doing this to myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28206429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: Akira comes to Inaba when he's eleven years old. When he's sixteen, he's arrested for an alleged assault, and in another month he'll be sent away from home, stuck in Tokyo for a year....unless he can find a way to clear his name first.A what if spinoff of my Forewarned is Forearmed series, where Akira is never sent away to Tokyo.
Series: Forewarned is Forearmed [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767610
Comments: 55
Kudos: 194
Collections: Marigolds Discord Recs





	Forewarned: Inaba

**Author's Note:**

> A few quick notes:  
> 1) If you haven't read any of the rest of this series, I'd honestly suggest at least starting with Forewarned before coming back to this. It's kind of a self-indulgent 'yay I'm a whole year into writing this series!' and I honestly don't think it makes a lot of sense without the backstory  
> 2) If you HAVE read the rest of this series, Forearmed is not canon to this fic, and there are some things that are just straight up different (so Yu is in college closer to Inaba instead of in Tokyo, OC Ryoko Ishikawa has a different Palace than she will in Forearmed, etc , etc)  
> 3) This was going to cover a lot more ground than what actually ended up here, but then I saw I was on 20,000 words and decided meh, time to cut it short.

_April 4_

_Evening_

-//-

It could have gone worse, Dojima thinks as he stares down at the file spread out in front of him on his desk. Really, it could have gone _so_ much worse, and only a combination of lucky timing and quick thinking had saved tonight from being a complete and utter disaster.

Inaba's a small town, the kind of place where everyone knows everybody else. When the call comes in saying that a high school student has assaulted a visiting politician, the arresting officer recognizes Akira as the kid that's been staying with Dojima, and calls ahead on the way back to the station. 

Which is why Dojima is ready and waiting when they get there, first to give Akira (another) lecture about _not getting arrested_ , and second to help smooth things over before they blow up into bigger problems. 

And it's lucky he is there, because when the arresting officer tells him the name of the assault victim, Dojima recognizes it. It's been a while since he last saw it, as a nearly illegible signature on the paperwork he'd gotten when he went looking for Akira's parents five years ago, and instead found proof of their deaths. Masayoshi Shido is not someone he particularly wants anywhere near Akira, and so he bluffs, and misdirects, and generally does everything he can to make sure that the scowling, obviously drunk politician that comes to file charges never even learns Akira's _name_.

It's not really enough, Dojima thinks now, as he frowns down at the paperwork again. It won't be enough to get Akira out of trouble. It hadn't stopped Shido from filing charges, and Dojima is sure that the word of a big city politician is going to mean a lot more than the word of a sixteen year old kid. _He_ believes Akira when he says that he hadn't assaulted anyone, and that Shido had been drunk and trying to rape the woman he was with. But how many other people will?

Especially now that it's sure to come out that Akira's been lying about his parents for five years now. Dojima knows that the paperwork for Akira's arrest has already been filed. Someone's going to follow up soon, and then it'll all be out in the open. He's not exactly sure what's going to happen after that, when family services step in.

But at least Shido won't have anything to do with whatever it is that happens.

Feeling resigned, and not particularly optimistic, Dojima picks up his phone and starts making calls. It's true that he doesn't know what's going to happen to Akira, but for as long as he's going to be allowed to stay involved in the arrest, he's going to do what he can to help things go smoothly.

...well, as smoothly as they possibly can. There's always going to be some level of trouble, where Akira's involved.

-//-

Shido spends his evening alternating between nursing his fresh injuries, and grumbling about the kid that had--as far as anyone else will ever know--assaulted him.

He goes to bed early, because what else is there to do in a backwater nowhere like this. By the time he wakes up the next morning, he's more worried about the ugly, spreading bruise on one side of his face than about the kid he's decided to blame for it.

When he leaves for Tokyo the next morning, the problem of following up on the assault charges and keeping his name out of the papers has been passed off to an aide. Shido never even hears the name Akira Kurusu. 

-//-

_April 4_

_Night_

-//-

The same night that he's arrested, Akira has a dream.

A nightmare, technically, which maybe shouldn't have been too much of a surprise considering--well, considering everything that's happened today. But the nightmare isn't about his arrest, which might have made _sense_. Instead, he opens his eyes and finds himself in what seems like an old fashioned cell. He's lying on a cot, dressed in stripes, and there are bars in front of him.

" _Trickster..."_

He knows the voice immediately, even half whispered, and even tight with pain. "Lavenza?" he says, standing and reaching out immediately for the bars--they're locked. "Lavenza!"

"Akira..."

She's there, when he looks, both exactly the same and entirely different from the last time he'd seen her four years ago. She's older than he remembers, but then again, so is he, and if time has changed the way she looks, it has not changed her eyes as she looks back at _him_. Akira knows her in the way that she looks at him, even through the pain clouding her gaze, and he reaches out a hand through the bars toward her.

He's not completely sure what the plan is here. It's not like he can really do much of anything to help her, not with him on this side of the bars and her on the other. But it's been five years since he last saw her, and he is afraid in a way he can't name that if he doesn't do the right thing here, she'll be gone again.

"What's wrong?" he asks. "Lavenza--"

She puts her hand on top of his where he's curled it around the bar, and it feels only half real, somehow, like brushing his knuckles across electricity. "There's something-- _bad_ happening," she says, a strange hitch in her voice. "Trickster, I'm not going to be here for you. All of the things that I told you were coming, they're _here_ \--" Her hand tightens over his fingers. "And I can't... I _can't_..."

"Don't worry about that," Akira says quickly. "Lavenza, how do I help you?"

"You can't," she says.

"I'm _not_ accepting that," Akira says. "Listen, whatever's going on, you can't..."

She shakes her head, in such obvious pain now that Akira doesn't feel right arguing with her any more. But he's scared for her, and he moves his hand from where he's gripping the bar, turning it so that he's holding hers instead. He squeezes slightly, and says, "I know there's a whole... Velvet Room thing. And you're supposed to do for me what Margaret used to do for Yu, but..." He looks her right in the eyes. "I don't care about any of that, I just want you to be okay. We're friends, right?"

And even though he can tell that she's still in an incredible amount of pain, she smiles. "Just--be here," she says.

He smiles back. Something in him hurts. "Lavenza," he says. "I have literally no idea why I'm here or what's going on. I don't think I could leave even if I wanted to."

But he knows what she's trying to say. He knows that she's asking him to be there for her, and if that's all that he can do then that's absolutely what he's _going_ to do. So he stays, even as whatever pain she's going through seems to be getting worse, as she fades away.

Neither of them says much. They don't need to, really--Akira can feel their bond, the one Lavenza used to always talk about when he was younger, strong and tight inside him. And, as she fades away to nothing, he can feel that bond straining, threatening to break--

Grim faced and angry, Akira steps back from the bars, clenches both hands into fists at his side, and squeezes his eyes tight closed. _"No,"_ he says, to whoever and whatever might be listening. "I don't know what happened to Lavenza, but she's hurt and--" And dead? _Not_ dead. She can't possibly be dead.

(she _might_ be dead, she'd been in so much pain...)

"And I'm not letting her go," he says. "Not--like this. Whatever that was, it's not..." He shuts his eyes, fights back the sudden feeling of tears welling up behind his eyelids. "Not like this."

There's no answer. Akira doesn't know what he's doing, or why, or even if there's any way that it can help. But he focuses hard on the bond he has with Lavenza, imagines it as something solid and real that he can pull close into himself. He makes a promise to her, one that he knows she can't possibly hear, that he's not going to abandon her.

When he opens his eyes again, he's lying on the hard bed where he's been left to stay overnight after his arrest. He sits bolt upright, heart pounding, curling in on himself as if that's going to help him protect the thin, flickering bond between himself and Lavenza. He's not going to let her go. She's his friend, and he's not going let any friend of his just fade away like this.

He's not.

 _He is not_.

-//-

Elsewhere, and to her own surprise, Lavenza opens her eyes.

She is not in the Velvet Room, and she is not destroyed, not split in two, as Yaldabaoth had intended. She is weak, yes, but she is still alive. And in her heart of hearts, she knows why.

"Trickster," she whispers, pushing herself painfully up into a sitting position. The small effort hurts more than it should, so instead of standing, Lavenza pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. There's something strong and warm in her chest, tugging against the sharp, chill pain of what had very nearly been done to her.

And that something, the bond that had grown between herself and her trickster years ago, is stronger than the forces trying to pull her apart.

...but only barely. And Lavenza is left tired and aching, and the idea of moving anywhere seems like just too much right now. She closes her eyes, against the blurred view of mixed yellow fog and red blood, and waits. 

He'll come. He _will_ find her.

She can wait.

-//-

_April 5_

_Morning_

-//-

Akira is released after one night, to his own relief. The dream about Lavenza has left him feeling exhausted and twitchily eager to do something (anything) to find her. Soon. _Now_.

Dojima walks him through the release process, stressing as he does so that Akira is being released temporarily, pending trial, and that just because he's walking out of here it doesn't mean that everything's over.

"There probably won't be a trial," Dojima tells him. "The man that accused you of assault is refusing to come forward publicly--"

"Can he even do that?" Akira interrupts, temporarily distracted from mentally turning over the Lavenza problem.

"Technically no," Dojima says bluntly. "But if he has enough money and connections, then yes."

"So... I'm just automatically guilty?" Akira asks. "I didn't do anything, I _swear_ I didn't."

"And I believe you," Dojima assures him. "But because he won't come forward publicly, what's basically going to happen is that everyone involved will submit a written statement, a judge will consider them, and then he'll hand down a sentence."

"But--"

Akira knows that there's a high conviction rate nationwide in Japan. That by the time a case gets to trial, there's almost no chance that a judge is going to come back with a _not guilty_ verdict. He also knows that money counts for a lot, in all kinds of things in life, and he's pretty sure that this is going to turn out to be one of them.

"They're going to find me guilty," he says to Dojima. "Aren't they?"

"Almost definitely," Dojima says, after a second. "This man, the one who says you assaulted him... he's used to getting what he wants."

Akira appreciates vaguely that he's not being lied to. "And... what do you think the punishment is going to be?" he asks.

"For a first offence?" Dojima asks. "A year's probation, maybe. Almost certainly in a city somewhere, since they'd have the resources to handle cases involving minors. We don't get a lot of that around here, so--"

"So I won't be allowed to stay in Inaba," Akira finishes.

Dojima gives his shoulder a brief squeeze. "At least until the case is decided, you will," he says. "Come on. I pulled some strings and you're coming home for now. We'll figure everything else out later."

Akira nods, a little numb, and allows himself to be steered out to the car where he sits in the front passenger seat and stares out the window.

They're halfway home when his phone chirps, and Akira looks down at it, expecting a message. There's nothing there, though, except for an app he's never seen before. It's called the _metanav_ , and the app icon is a light blue butterfly on a darker blue background.

He thinks for a second that he's imagining things. That his dream about Lavenza is making everything he sees look a little bit like her. But the more he stares at it, the more he's convinced. Somehow, this is from her.

"Akira?"

He looks up, startled, and realizes that Dojima has been trying to get his attention for a little while.

"Sorry," Akira says. "I was just--sorry. What were you saying?"

He realizes that he must look terrible when Dojima glances in his direction and then actually softens a little bit. "Are you alright?" he asks.

No.

"I could use a shower, I think," Akira says. "And some more sleep. But I..." He meets Dojima's eyes and can't keep up the front. He lets his shoulders slump and shakes his head. "I screwed up," he says. "And I'm going to have to leave."

"You didn't screw up," Dojima tells him curtly.

"You're the one that's always reminding me that I need to keep myself out of trouble," Akira says, as if this is a thing that he is even remotely capable of. "Because of what would happen if people ever found out about my parents." Because of everything that's happening now.

"And I wish you had," Dojima says. "But if you had to pick a way to get yourself into trouble, this--sticking up for that woman that was about to be assaulted--I'm proud of you for that."

"Yeah," Akira says quietly. And then, a little louder, he repeats it. " _Yeah_. I don't regret what I did."

"You know what's right and what's wrong," Dojima tells him. "Whatever happens after they get all the red tape figured out, wherever you end up, hold onto that."

"I will," Akira says, and tries not to show how his stomach is tying itself into knots at the reminder of how he's going to have to leave.

The car pulls up at the house, and for a second both of them just sit there, not looking at each other. Then Akira feels a hand on his shoulder, and looks up and over to see Dojima wearing his best _I'm being serious here_ expression. "It's not going to be forever," he says. "Whatever your punishment is, it'll be over eventually. And now that your situation is out in the open, there are things I can do for you that I couldn't do before. I can go through official channels to make sure that you'll be allowed to come back here after it's all over."

"Really?" Akira asks.

"I wouldn't lie about something this important," Dojima says, and Akira knows him well enough to absolutely believe him.

But at the same time, as he gets in and starts decompressing after what has been an _honestly_ terrible twenty four hours, his mind just can't stop spinning. He appreciates more than he would have expected this reassurance that Dojima isn't going to let him go through this alone. That the people he cares about are still going to be fighting in his corner.

...and then on the other hand, he's still going to be sent away. It sounds like this probation is pretty much guaranteed, so he's still going to be _somewhere else_ for however long that lasts. It's still out in the open now that his parents have been dead for six years.

This is one of those moments that comes with a clear _before_ and _after_. His life _before_ the so-called assault is going to be different from his life _after_.

He sits in his room, trying not to think about things, and staring at his phone. At the app from Lavenza, the one with the butterfly.

What is he supposed to _do_? 

-//-

_April 6_

_Afternoon_

-//-

Akira spends a day or so in a kind of blur, not sure what to think about anything that has happened to him in the past couple days, not sure what he's supposed to _do_. And then, the second afternoon after he comes home, Akira grabs his things, goes running downstairs two at a time, and stops just long enough to blurt out to Dojima that he's going into the TV.

"Hmm?" He looks up from his newspaper and nods. "Well, it'll probably help you feel better."

"I hope so," Akira says. Because he'd had a dream about Lavenza while he was locked up, and this is the only place he can think of to go look for her. "I won't be too long, I don't think."

"I'll tell Nanako when she gets home," Dojima says. "Be _careful_ for once, alright?"

"Maybe."

" _Akira_."

He feels a little buoyed up by the level of sheer exasperation he can hear in Dojima's voice, and throws himself into the TV with a smile on his face. 

...which fades, quickly, because he's been into the TV a hundred times before but now, suddenly, things are different. It's just a feeling, at first, that something is wrong as he falls. But then he lands, and looks around, and there's red in the air, red all around, and a noise like Akira has never heard before.

"What," he mutters, as he turns in a slow circle, taking in the changes around him. "The _actual_ fuck."

There are columns of something that looks like solid blood stretching up as far as Akira can see. Walls of worse and more disgusting things hem him in, and from somewhere up ahead there's still that same rumbling, shaking noise that Akira cannot place.

So of course he heads forward, slow and careful, drinking in the details of everything he can see around him. There are Shadows, plenty of them, but Akira is more concerned with exploring than fighting right now, so he stays quiet and hidden, sticking to the corners as he wanders randomly through the maze that the TV World has become.

And then he comes out into an open space, where he finally sees what it is that's causing the shaking, and the sounds. The hall opens up into a wider space, with tracks on the ground and a _train_ rushing past. Akira stands still as a statue, and watches it speed by so quickly that it raises a wind, blowing his hair in front of his face. He pushes it impatiently out of his eyes as the train vanishes into the distance, and wonders what exactly he's stumbled into now. His heart races, and even though a part of him is still frozen in shock at what has happened to one of his favorite places in the world, he is _excited_. This is new and different and probably dangerous, and Akira wants to know absolutely everything about it.

 _New destination,_ says a muffled voice, and Akira barely stops himself from jumping. It takes him a second to realize the voice is coming from his phone, and when he pulls it out he sees that the new app has opened automatically. 

So far, when Akira has looked at it, it's only been one screen reading _enter destination_ , but without any obvious way to put a destination in. Now there's a new screen with the heading _known locations_ , and a single entry.

"Mementos," Akira reads aloud. "What does that mean?"

But there's no answer, of course, and Akira can't figure it out from the amount of information that he has in front of him. He spends a little bit more time wandering around, fighting a few of the Shadows in front of him just to see if he can handle them (he can, they aren't much tougher here than they had been in Yukiko's castle). Then he heads back the way he'd come, counting off turns he'd memorized on the way in, until he gets back to the place where he'd entered.

Normally, there would be a TV here. He's been using the same way out to get from the TV World back to the real world for years, but there's nothing there now. Apparently, along with all the other changes to the TV World, that's gone too.

His phone buzzes again, and Akira looks back down at it.

_Return to the Real World? [Y/N]_

He jabs yes, and the world around him twists and distorts and finally resolves itself back into the Dojima living room. 

_"Thank you for your hard work,"_ the cool voice on his phone says. 

Akira gives it a look.

"Everything go okay in there?" Dojima asks. 

"Um," Akira says, because he's not sure exactly how to try and answer that question. Dojima, over the years, has gotten to be more understanding and accommodating of TV World trips than Akira has any right to expect. But there are still some things that are just impossible to explain to someone that hasn't _been_ there, and this is one of them. "Yes?"

It's clearly not a convincing enough response, because Dojima gives him a look and asks, "What went wrong this time?" 

"Nothing."

The man gives a sigh. Akira uses the distraction to book it upstairs, and avoid any more potential questions.

He doesn't understand any of what he'd just seen. He _does not understand_. The TV World had changed, keeping some of what he knows and twisting other parts unrecognizably. There's that same yellow fog, the same familiar girders and beams that always made it seem so much like a TV set. But then there's the blood, the red everywhere, the _train_ , and he just... doesn't know what to do with that.

When he's up in his room, alone except for his racing thoughts, Akira paces. This is going to be a whole new set of rules, isn't it? A whole new... _something_ to figure out. And at the end of it all, hopefully...

Akira sits down on the sofa, staring at his phone, at the blue butterfly on the new app. 

At the end of it all, hopefully, is a way to help Lavenza.

-//-

_April 11_

_After School_

-//-

Nanako spends the days immediately following Akira's arrest gradually getting more and more nervous. His hearing takes place a couple days after his arrest, and as they'd all pretty much expected he's found guilty. He's referred to the Tokyo juvenile system, and given a year of probation set to start as soon as a suitable temporary guardian can be found.

Nanako starts school, and after a little bit of negotiation, Akira is allowed to temporarily go back to Yasogami. It's not like the school is so full that they don't have room for him until he's put somewhere else, and Nanako's dad had been firm about the idea that this is not going to be allowed to impact Akira's education.

So things have the vague _appearance_ of normalcy, which makes it so much worse that underneath the surface, they're not normal at all. Nanako goes to school in the morning, walking with Akira (who is quiet and distracted in a way he never usually is) until they split up by the high school, and then going on to her own. School is hard because _everyone_ knows what's happened to Akira, and Nanako's classmates all want to know every detail.

(The fact that her homeroom teacher had actually been _involved_ in the whole incident, and that she seems determined to take out all her mean feelings about Akira on Nanako is just the icing on the whole stupid cake that is this school year so far)

And then it's home again, where nobody is talking much. It's like they're just waiting for the final news of where Akira's going to be stuck for the year, and in the meantime...

After about a week of gossip at school, outright cruelty from her teacher, and quiet, on edge sadness at home, Nanako's decided she's had just about enough of it. She corners Akira on Monday evening after they both get back home, and drags him out of the house. "We're going to do something today," she tells him. "You've been too upset lately. I don't like it."

"Sorry," he says.

"You better be," she tells him, and he actually cracks a smile.

"Okay," he says. "So how about this? I've been trying to figure it out on my own, but maybe you'll have some ideas."

"What is it?" Nanako asks, as he pulls out his phone and scrolls through it, looking for something.

"Well," he says. "If I knew _that_..."

She sticks her tongue out, but then looks down at the app he's jabbed his thumb toward. It's a blue butterfly that reminds her immediately and strongly of Lavenza, even though Nanako hasn't seen her since she was six. "Oh!" she says, surprised and--unexpectedly--excited.

"Yeah, I know," Akira says. "But I haven't been able to figure out what to do with it yet."

"What does it look like when you open it?"

Akira taps it open, and a relatively barebones display pops up onto the screen, with the prompt _enter destination_ in curling letters in the middle. "Destination," Nanako says quietly. "What kind of destination?"

"That's the part I haven't been able to figure out," Akira says. "And I'm not sure how you need to enter it, either. There's nothing to type into, see?"

He's right. There's no search field on the screen or anything.

"It's... related to Lavenza somehow," Nanako says. "Right? It looks like her."

"I think almost definitely," Akira says.

"Maybe it navigates places inside the TV World then," Nanako suggests.

He grins. "I was going to get to that, actually, because that was my first thought too, and that's the only location that _has_ showed up."

He swipes the screen to one side. The text on the screen slides away, and is replaced by the heading _known locations_ with a single entry underneath.

"Mementos," Nanako reads aloud. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Akira says. "It just showed up there after I went in and checked out the TV World."

"So that's Mementos?" Nanako asks. "I guess--that's someone's word for it?"

"Right," Akira says. "Only it's changed, inside the TV."

"Changed?" Nanako asks. " _How_?"

Akira's description is relatively short and to the point, which does not make it any less _weird_. She knows what the TV World is supposed to look like, even though she hasn't been there since she was way younger, the memories haven't faded at all. She remembers a world full of yellow fog, as far as the eye could see, that only cleared at all for people wearing special glasses, or masks like Akira's. There had been a few permanent structures, like the metal girders that made the whole thing look like a TV set, but mostly it had been empty.

"It's different now," Akira tells her again. "The fog's still there, as far as I could tell with my mask on. But there's all these tracks now, like--train tracks, or subway tracks. And everything's kind of red and bloody. And there's a lot more Shadows."

"That sounds..." It sounds really scary, actually. "Not very good. Did you tell anyone else about it?"

"Not yet," Akira says. "It's not like there's anyone else with a Persona in town right now."

This is true, Nanako knows. Yusuke's in Tokyo. Yu's away at college. Most of his friends are too, or at least out doing work or vocational training or _something_. A lot of them are planning to come back eventually, but right now? This year? Akira's the only one in Inaba that can fight Shadows. Except... "What about Teddie?" she asks. " _He's_ not out of town, is he?"

"He's crashing at Yosuke's dorm for the semester," Akira says. "Apparently Yosuke's roommates are _thrilled_."

Nanako laughs, and Akira smiles for a second before the expression fades. "I've been trying to figure out how to get another location onto the app," he says. "Something less--" He gestures sharply. " _Weird_ than whatever's going on inside the TV."

"But to do that you'd need to know how to search the app," Nanako says. "And what kind of places you can even search _for_. Right?"

"Exactly," Akira says.

So they're right back to where they'd been at the beginning of the conversation. An app that has something to do with the TV World, but nothing obvious showing how it's supposed to be used. "What happens if you try and select the Mementos entry?" Nanako asks. "Does it give you any information or anything?"

"It takes me back there," Akira says. "I've tried it a couple times in different places, and it seems like it's just a way into the TV World without actually having to physically go in through the TV."

Nanako nods. "Well," she says slowly. "Maybe if we already know it can go into the TV World, maybe it can go to other places where you can use your Persona? Like how the P-1 Tournament was at that weird other version of your school. Or the Shadow Operatives and their--what did they call it?" She's usually good at remembering the names of things related to Shadows, but she hasn't thought about the Shadow Operatives in a while, and most of what she knows about their Shadow fighting history is secondhand anyway. "Tartarus?"

"I don't think that either of those places exist anymore," Akira says. "And Mementos only showed up when I went into the TV World."

"So there must be some other place we have to find," Nanako says. "Somewhere else that you can fight Shadows!"

"Probably," Akira says. "But I have no idea how to do that, other than walking face first into whatever appliances I happen to pass, to see if they work like TVs do."

"Or maybe you could try different TVs," Nanako says. "Maybe the one here takes you to Mementos, but the one in Junes takes you to--I don't know. Somewhere else."

"So that would make Mementos a place inside the TV World," Akira says thoughtfully. "I was kind of thinking it had like... replaced the TV World. But I don't know. Maybe you're right."

"We should experiment," Nanako says. "We can go to Junes after school tomorrow. Or--" She makes a face. "Maybe not tomorrow. I have classroom duty."

"Again?" Akira asks. "You've had it twice already since school started, and it's only been a week."

Cleaning duties _are_ supposed to be spread around among the class, but... well, that hasn't really been happening. Nanako's definitely been getting more than her share, but after the way things have been going with her teacher, that's not a huge surprise.

"Nanako?" Akira asks.

"It's nothing," she says quickly.

"Obviously it is," he says, and because it's him, Nanako caves immediately.

"My homeroom teacher isn't--she doesn't like me very much," she says, which is true but also doesn't really scratch the surface. Nanako isn't going to tell Akira that she'd been the woman that he'd tried to help on the night he got arrested. She's not going to tell him that Ishikawa is mad at _her_ because of what had happened with her and Akira and that guy.

"Who's your homeroom teacher this year?" Akira asks.

Nanako hesitates, but she doesn't think Akira knows the name of the woman from the assault, anyway. He's told her that he'd only vaguely recognized her face that night. "Ryoko Ishikawa," she tells him. "I don't think she was there when you were in elem--"

 _"Match detected_."

She stops talking and looks down at Akira's phone. So does he, and for a second both of them just stare at the new entry on the app.

"It hasn't done that before," Akira says. "Although I've been trying to figure it out by myself, so I guess maybe that's why? It seems like it's voice activated."

"This is why you need me," Nanako tells him.

"Or maybe I just need to talk to myself more."

She smacks his arm, which makes him laugh. Only for a second, though, before he gets serious again. "Should we try and figure this out?"

He turns his phone so that both of them can see the screen. There are three fields now and one of them--target, has been filled in. The other two, location and distortion, are still blank and waiting for inputs.

"Huh," Nanako says. "Well location could just be where she is."

"And it's not too late yet," Akira says. "So maybe she's still at the school." He rattles off the name of Nanako's elementary school, and a second later the app announces another match.

"But what's a distortion?" Nanako asks. "That's..." she doesn't have any idea, but Akira looks thoughtful even as she shrugs.

"It obviously has something to do with the TV World," he says. "Because the Mementos thing showed up when I went in. And back when all this started, and Yu's friends were getting thrown in through TVs, there were those, like..." He waves a vague hand. "I don't know what you want to call them, but the places where they were all stuck. Like the castle for Yukiko, or the Bathhouse for Kanji. Those could be a kind of distortion, right?"

"And all those had to do with... how they saw themselves," Nanako says. "Or something they wanted. Right?" She does not add _that's how Heaven was for me,_ and Akira doesn't say anything about it either. They don't really talk about that much, although Nanako's pretty sure he's been back there a few times over the years to train with his Persona. She appreciates the fact that he's kept quiet about it, because she just...

Really doesn't want to talk about it.

"Right," Akira says. "So maybe it's something personal to her."

Nanako shrugs helplessly. "I don't know her that well," she says. "I only met her on the first day of class."

"Well what _do_ you know about her?" Akira asks.

Nanako sighs. "I guess... she's kind of..."

"Nanako?"

"She might be a little bit obsessed with what happened when you got arrested," Nanako admits, kind of squirming. She really hadn't wanted him to know that she's having trouble at school because of him, but suddenly this app has made it important. "She--she's kind of angry about it,because she was--she was the woman that was involved that night, and..." It's getting harder to look at Akira as she tries to explain. "I don't know. I guess it makes sense that she'd be scared if a man almost assaulted her, and then everyone at school started gossiping about it. But she's said some--I don't know. Some nasty things."

"Like what?" Akira asks. "Nasty to _you_?"

"No!" she assures him quickly. "No, actually, um... nasty about you. Like I heard her complaining to another teacher that it wasn't right that you just got released, and that you should have been locked up in jail inst--"

_"Match detected."_

She cuts off abruptly as the voice from Akira's phone interrupts her, and they look down at what is now a completely filled out search field. The distortion now shows _jail_ , and under that are the words _begin navigation._

"I guess... that's what we needed," Akira says. He looks torn for a second, looking between her and the app, and Nanako can tell that he's not sure whether he should try and address the app first, or the problems she's been having at school.

(She doesn't want to talk about school. She wants to talk about the TV World, because it's less awkward and embarrassing and also because--)

(Well, because she wants to know what's going on as much as he does)

"So why don't you try and go there?" she says, pointing to the app, and to her relief he goes for it.

-//-

_April 11_

_After School_

-//-

It turns out that he can't actually use the navigation app until he's close enough to the school, which is kind of a problem for Akira. He'd stick out like a sore thumb going to the elementary school himself, so in the end he heads over with Nanako. At least it's a _little_ less weird for him to be heading up toward the school with someone who's actually a student there. 

It's late enough in the afternoon that the school is mostly empty, which helps them get in unobserved. And, in a stroke of luck, they don't have to actually go _into_ the school before the app lets him know that they're close enough to start navigation.

The bad luck comes right after that, when Akira hits _begin navigation_ , and doesn't realize that it's going to take Nanako in with him. There's a feeling like falling, a sudden sharp landing, and then a squeak as Nanako drops next to him.

Akira scrambles up onto his feet, feeling the familiar sensation of his mask and coat materializing around him. As if he needed more confirmation that they've stumbled into something like the TV World. He looks quickly around, sizing up wherever it is that they've fallen into, trying to decide if there's anything here that's going to be an immediate threat to either him or Nanako. 

They're still--sort of--standing in the same place that they had been in the real world. The area around them is recognizably Inaba, only a little darker and a little colder. The big difference, really, is that where the elementary school had been in the real world there's now a looming, gray box of a building with the words _Yasoinaba Prison_ in heavy letters over the door.

But at least he doesn't see Shadows or anything like that, so Akira crouches down next to where Nanako is still on the ground, staring up in surprise at what her school has turned into. "You okay?" he asks her.

"Y-yeah," she says, and lets him help her up to her feet before she looks around and says, "There's no fog here."

"There isn't?" He's wearing his mask, which would have helped him to see clearly even if there _had_ been fog.

"No."

"That's weird." It is still _definitely_ something TV World related, but maybe not as closely related as he'd assumed based on the app and everything else. "I wonder what else is different."

"Maybe we should go see," Nanako says.

"Maybe _I_ should go see," Akira says. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I want to help," she argues. "Like I have before--you _know_ I know a lot about Shadows and things, and you've never been here before so maybe _you_ shouldn't be going in by yourself either, and--"

"Hang on," Akira says, interrupting what is quickly turning into a whole stream of words. "Just--Nanako, hang on a second. Do you want to be here?"

"I--" the excitement on her face flashes into surprise for a second, and then settles on embarrassment. "I... yeah." She stands up a little straighter. "I don't know what's going on, but we have to figure it out fast, before you get taken away for your probation. And I can help, I know plenty about Shadows, and there's no one else here, like you said, so--so I want to help." She crosses her arms over her chest. "I'm the same age you were when you went into the TV for the first time. So I'm not too young."

"I wasn't going to say you were," Akira says. "But--you're sure, right?"

She nods, and then her eyes slide away from his face, off to one side. "I've been sure that I wanted to do this for a long time. I started thinking about it during the P-1 Tournament, and ever since then..." she trails off, biting her lip.

Akira thinks he gets it. If he didn't have Arsene, if he'd had to just watch everyone else go into the TV World while he was stuck behind in Inaba, he'd have wanted to do anything he could to help, too. Maybe it had taken Nanako a little longer for her to make up her mind, and maybe he doesn't even blame her after she'd been dragged inside the TV and trapped when she was a kid. But she'd gotten there in the end, and Akira's not going to tell her no.

"Let's just be careful," is what he _does_ tell her. "The Shadows in Mementos weren't very strong, but this place could be different."

She nods, and they approach the prison.

The front doors are open, at least, which gives them a view of the inside of the building before they actually get there. It's grim inside, all shades of black and gray, but definitely the most worrying thing is that there are people inside.

...not people, exactly? Dark things wearing masks and guard uniforms, that Akira _strongly_ suspect are Shadows. He's never seen them like this (they've always looked more like blobs than anything else, in the TV World), but he can't think what else would be living in here.

"I want to avoid fighting if I can," he tells Nanako, as the two of them crouch near the door, watching the Shadows patrol. "I'm not sure if they're more powerful because they look like that, but better safe than sorry, probably."

"Okay," Nanako whispers.

"Stay close," Akira says, and waits to see Nanako nod before leading the way through what looks like a kind of prisoner intake lobby. Akira is getting some pretty definitely bad vibes about this place, and can't stop himself from wondering what is going on in Nanako's teacher's head for things to show up like this now. 

There's only one obvious way onward, a door against the back wall. Akira takes it, checks for Shadows, and then ushers Nanako in ahead of him into a long, straight hallway of cells. There are no guards visible--for now, anyway--but Akira can hear sounds coming from inside the dark cells that make him think there must be Shadows locked up in there.

"This is _really_ weird," Nanako says, as they make their way slowly past the cells. She squints inside as they pass, past the bars that serve as walls, but it's way too dark for either of them to be able to make out any details.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Akira admits. "Maybe--"

"Hey!"

Nanako jumps and almost knocks into Akira, who reaches out to steady her even as he processes the new voice.

"Yeah," the voice says. "You two!"

"Who's there?" Akira asks, risking raising his voice a little. The voice sounds like it's coming from somewhere up ahead, so--making sure he's staying between the voice and Nanako--Akira starts to walk toward it.

"Over here," the voice says, and Akira stops just a second before he can walk past one of the cells. He squints into the darkness, then gives up and pulls out his phone. There's no signal in here, which doesn't come as a huge shock, but the flashlight works fine so Akira switches that on and shines it into the cell to reveal...

A cat.

A cat... thing, anyway, standing on two legs and with a head that's about the size of the entire rest of his body. He's wearing a yellow bandana and a kind of utility belt, and overall he is probably the weirdest looking thing Akira has ever seen.

…

(Okay, not the actual _weirdest_ , but he's right up near the top of the list)

The cat monster hisses and steps back, his large eyes squinting against the sudden light. "Can you not shine that right at me?" he asks.

"Sorry," Akira says, pointing the phone down a little so it's not pointing right into the cat's face. "But, uh..."

"Akira," Nanako interrupts. "Akira, look how _cute_ he is."

"Right," Akira says, a little uncertain because he's not exactly sure if cute is the right word. It seems to have mollified the cat a little bit, at least--he looks marginally less annoyed. "Uh--who are you?"

The cat gives him a long, appraising look, then says, "You can call me Mona."

"Is that your real name?" Nanako asks.

"Maybe," Mona says.

"You kind of sounded like you were thinking about it," Akira says.

"It's a codename," Mona admits. "You can't exactly be too careful about what you say while you're in someone else's Palace, can you?"

"What's a Palace?" Nanako asks at once.

Mona hesitates a second, looking at both of them, then says, "How about you two help me get out of here, and then I'll explain?"

"Done," Akira says immediately. He's not at all sure what's going on here, who Mona is ( _what_ Mona is), or how he'd gotten locked up here in the first place, but he's definitely not in favor of letting anyone stay locked up here for no reason.

(Especially not in a place as grim as this)

"Really?" Mona asks. His posture gets a little bit less stiff. "Just like that?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "Hang on, I think I might be able to get through this lock."

"There's a guard all the way at the end of the hall that has all the keys," Mona says, pointing as best he can down the way that Akira and Nanako haven't been to yet.

"Perfect," Akira says, turning off his flashlight and shoving his phone back in his pocket. He'd been thinking vaguely of trying to pick the lock the way he'd always been able to get into treasure chests in the TV World before, but that sounds easier. "We'll be right back."

"Be careful!" Mona calls after them as they head farther up the hall. "These things can be dangerous if you can't fight back."

"Don't worry," Akira calls over his shoulder. "I can."

He can hear Mona scrambling in his cell to press himself against the bars and keep them in sight. Akira ignores this, focusing on creeping forward until at last the Shadow comes into view. It's the same as the guards he'd seen in the atrium, facing the other way.

Akira takes a breath, prays that the Shadow won't be too tough for him to take on alone, and leaps at it. Something--he's not sure exactly what, unless it's Arsene buzzing away at the back of his mind--tells him what he needs to do. He reaches up and around and _yanks_ the Shadow's mask off its face before skidding back to a safe distance. The guard erupts into a kind of black ooze, which turns into _three_ Shadows, all of which Akira recognizes.

But he's seen them as Persona. Not as Shadows.

But they fight like Shadows, and (luckily) they're not throwing any attacks at him that are too strong for him to deal with alone. It takes Akira a couple minutes to wear them down, but he manages it at last. The Shadow makes some nervous noises like it wants to talk to him, but Akira is sort of in a hurry and anyway he's recruited this Persona in the past, so he ignores this.

When the Shadow melts into black goop, it leaves behind a ring of keys that Akira grabs immediately. "Guess this is what Mona was talking about," he says.

"Let's hurry back and let him out," Nanako says. "Akira, come on!"

"Do you want to do it?" he asks, tossing the keys to her.

She grins and hurries ahead, visibly more confident now that they've been from one end of the hall to the other, and know that there aren't any Shadows here. Akira follows a little more slowly, watching Nanako trying a couple different keys before she finds the right one to open Mona's door. She manages it at last, and the cat thing bounds out into the hall, visibly excited even from several feet away.

Akira laughs--

And then an alarm starts to blare, and the door back at the front of the hall slams open, hitting the wall so forcefully that it sends an echoing _bang_ all the way down. Akira's laugh dies and he speeds up, hurrying to get back to Nanako.

He gets there just in time to hear her say, "Sensei?"

Which is when he recognizes, sort of, the woman that's just come through the open door. He's only seen her once before, but it had been on a night that he's never going to forget. She's dressed in prisoner's rags now, with broken manacles hanging from her wrists, and her eyes are a wild yellow, but he _recognizes_ the woman he'd tried to help on the night he was arrested for assault.

This afternoon is not going at all the way he'd expected it to.

-//-

_April 11_

_Afternoon_

-//-

Morgana recognizes the woman with the yellow eyes, but not in the same way that his two rescuers seem to. They both seem like they know her, while Morgana only knows that she _must_ be the Palace ruler. Which means that she's dangerous and they should probably not be anywhere near her, even if one of the other two--the one the girl had called Akira--has a surprisingly powerful Persona.

"We have to get out of here," he says, as the Shadow's eyes land on them, and she starts to move forward.

"But..." the girl sounds completely confused. "I don't understand. How is Sensei here?"

"It's not really her," Morgana says. "Just her Shadow."

"How can her Shadow be here if she's not?" Akira asks.

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?" Morgana asks. "Look, this is her Palace. It's her distorted way of looking at the world, and this is how she sees herself. You have a Persona, don't you already know any of this?"

"This... isn't exactly how I'm used to seeing Shadows and things," Akira admits. "How do you know about Persona, anyway?"

"I have one too," Morgana says. "But--anyway, the real version of her probably doesn't even realize this is how she's seeing things, but that doesn't mean her Shadow can't _kill_ us, Persona or no Persona. Let's go alrea--"

It's too late. The Shadow is already on top of them, and Morgana braces himself for a fight. He doesn't--well, he doesn't actually _remember_ how he'd ended up locked in that cell, but he knows that he doesn't want to let it happen again.

"Leaving already?" the Shadow asks. "You're going to miss all the excitement."

"What excitement?" Akira asks, and Morgana doesn't miss the way he steps in front of the younger girl. 

Her eyes narrow as she focuses in on him. " _You_ ," she says.

"Uh," Akira says.

"You're the one that locked me up here in the first place," the Shadow says. 

To his credit, Akira pulls himself together quickly. "Listen," he says. "I was just trying to help you. I didn't mean--"

"I don't care what you meant to do," the Shadow snaps. "Do you know what it's like to be in that position? To have someone try and _force_ himself onto you? And then have him threaten you into testifying that it was all consensual?"

"So that's why you said what you did," Akira says quietly. " _That's_ why you testified that I assaulted him?"

Morgana is starting to really want to hear the rest of this story.

"As if I had a choice," the Shadow snaps. "And now everyone--all the students, all the other teachers--they _all_ think that I'm the kind of person that would..." her face twists. "With a man I'd just met. With a man like _that_. Walking into this school every day is like--"

"Like a prison?" Morgana asks, crossing his arms and frowning.

"That does _not_ exactly feel fair," Akira mutters, in a voice quiet enough that it's obviously not meant for the Shadow to overhear. "Considering only one of us was arrested."

The Shadow smirks, and Morgana decides that he does not like where this is going.

"Do you hear those alarms?" she asks, still looking mostly at Akira.

"Kind of hard not to," he says.

From her expression, she obviously doesn't appreciate the sarcasm.

Morgana, on the other hand, kind of respects the fact that he's calm enough to mouth off in a situation like this.

"Well," the Shadow says. "Do you know what that alarm _means_?"

"No," he says. 

"It means that there's been a prison break," the Shadow says, rubbing at her manacles and grinning suddenly like a madman. "I've decided that if everyone's going to treat me like I'm the villain, I might as well _be_ one."

"I guess that explains why she's been so mean at school," the girl says, in a very quiet voice.

"This is _my_ prison now," says the woman. "And none of you are welcome here."

She raises her arms, and immediately every cell door crashes open. The Shadows inside com pouring out like a dark wave, and for a little while that's all that Morgana can even concentrate on. He has his Persona, and Akira has his, and the two of them exchange a pointed look before moving closer together and starting to fight. The kid is obviously experienced, maybe (probably) even more than Morgana is, but there are just... there are a _lot_ of Shadows here.

They hold out for a while, but there are so many Shadows, and even when Akira pulls out a knife of some kind and starts adding some impressive looking stabbing attacks to what his Persona is doing, they still aren't really taking them out quickly enough to make a difference.

"Nanako!" Akira shouts, and (after a second of confusion) Morgana realizes this must be the younger girl. He looks up, searching for whatever had made Akira's shout sound so desperate and terrified, but with all the Shadows around, it takes him a second to spot where the Palace ruler has cornered the girl against the open door to what had been Morgana's cell.

"Stay out of this," the Palace ruler says, without taking her eyes off Nanako. "Or aren't you _busy_ enough already?"

Akira actually growls, in frustration or anger or something, and if anything starts to fight harder. Morgana tries too, but he's already having a hard time keeping up, and he's not sure that either of them is going to be able to get to Nanako or the Palace ruler.

The Shadow leans down to whisper something into Nanako's ear. Morgana isn't close enough to hear the conversation that follows, but he sees when Nanako freezes, her eyes go wide.

She looks scared, Morgana thinks. She looks _terrified_.

And then all at once, Nanako's expression hardens and she says--in a loud, deliberate voice, that cuts through the chaos of the fight between Morgana, Akira, and the wave of Shadows--

" _No."_

_-//-_

_April 11_

_After School_

-//-

Nanako doesn't know what the Shadow version of her teacher wants with her, not until she leans down to whisper into her ear.

"You know I'm going to hurt you," Shadow Ishikawa says.

Nanako feels cold.

"It's because of your brother," the Shadow continues, not waiting for an answer. "Because he ruined my life when he stepped in that night. And it turns out that hurting you is the best way to hurt _him_."

"But that's..." She does not understand this at all. She doesn't understand why someone would want to hurt someone like that. She doesn't understand why a teacher, who is supposed to--to _care_ about her students, would just use those students to lash out at the world instead. "That's not right," she says.

"Nothing about this is right," Ishikawa says. "You'll understand that when you're older." 

Nanako is standing against the wall, and Ishikawa suddenly lashes out with one hand, slamming it into the wall next to the side of Nanako's face. She flinches, and wishes she hadn't when she sees Ishikawa smile.

"It's bad enough being here," Ishikawa says. "In this dead-end job in the middle of nowhere, in this backwater town. But now everyone thinks they know who I am. They look down at me. They've made this whole place a _prison_."

"Inaba's not a prison," Nanako says.

_Are you going to just keep on listening to these lies?_

...what?

"If this is going to be my life," Ishikawa says. "If people are going to _look at me_ and see this--" She gestures with visible disdain to herself. "Why not be what everyone expects?"

"Because that's wrong," Nanako says. "I mean--you didn't do anything wrong, just like Akira didn't do anything wrong--"

"You don't believe that," Ishikawa says. "Nobody believes that." She makes a sharp, dismissive noise. "And why would it matter if you did believe it? You're just some kid, with the bad luck of having a brother that pisses people off."

A nobody? But--but she's not.

_Are you going to let her keep telling those lies? Or are you going to step up and show her the truth?_

Nanako's heart speeds up, and suddenly she's breathing too quickly. She feels like suddenly, here and now, as Akira and Mona fight against a flood of Shadows, and as her teacher's Shadow explains to her that she sees herself as... as _ruined_ somehow, that she sees Inaba as a nowhere place and Nanako as a nothing person, she feels like she's seeing things clearer.

And the voice in her head says, _You have waited long enough to show the world who you are. Are you going to keep me waiting?_

And Nanako says, " _No."_

 _Then fight_ , says the voice. _Rise up against those that would use you to destroy what you care for. Show them the spirit of your own rebellion._

Something calcifies against her face, across her eyes. She reaches for it, angry and knowing--somehow--that this will help. She wraps her fingers around what feels strangely like a mask, and with all her strength she _pulls_. The mask comes away with the feeling of something wet that might be blood, and a surge of power rushes through Nanako that is nothing like anything she's ever felt before.

" _Persona!_ " she shouts, and her Persona comes in a blast of blue fire.

It knocks Shadow Ishikawa back. It pushes away the flood of Shadows fighting Akira and Mona. It blows a _hole_ in the _wall_ of Mona's cell behind them.

Something... something beautiful hangs in the air between Nanako and her teacher's Shadow. And she knows her Persona, knows _herself_. 

Murasaki Shikibu.

Her Persona is _amazing_.

"Nanako!" Akira shouts, and she realizes that he's suddenly at her side, his hand on her elbow. "Are you okay?"

"I'm--" She's more than okay. She nods emphatically, and he grins and takes a second to wrap an arm around her in an enthusiastic one armed hug.

"We need to get out of here," Mona calls from back by the cell. "Come on, we can get out this way--"

The three of them rush out, through the new hold Nanako's Persona has blasted through the wall, which takes them out of the prison completely and back to the world outside. It's still not the _real_ world, it's obviously not the real world, but at least there aren't so many Shadows everywhere.

"We really need to get out of here," Akira mutters, and Nanako thinks he's probably talking to himself, but Mona answers anyway.

"How'd you get in?" he asks.

"An app," Akira says, fishing out his phone. "I guess there's no reason to think it couldn't take us back out--"

There's a jolt as he does something on his phone, and Nanako _feels_ the transition out of the prison world. 

"--too," Akira finishes. "Great. Guess that worked?"

"Well it looks like you're not completely useless," Mona says, and Nanako half jumps because she doesn't see him anywhere. The voice is coming from close to the ground, so Nanako looks down and sees a completely normal cat with Mona's eyes on the grass between herself and Akira.

"Mona?" Akira asks, crouching down with an absolutely delighted grin on his face. "You're--"

"Okay, okay," Mona says. "Let's get one thing out of the way right now--I am _not_ a cat."

"You are one hundred percent a cat," Akira tells him, and then looks up at Nanako as Mona splutters defensively. "How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Um..." now that the first burst of adrenaline has worn off, there's a heaviness in her limbs that makes her want to just go home and curl up in bed for hours. "I'm okay, I think."

"You're sure?" he asks. "I've never seen anyone awaken a Persona like that before."

"I'm sure," Nanako assures him. "I feel... good. Just tired."

He watches her for a couple seconds longer though, like he's searching her for signs that she's not as okay as she says she is. Nanako doesn't let herself give even an inch. She _is_ okay. 

"Akira," she says. "I have a Persona."

"About time," he tells her with a grin, and she laughs. Then yawns, and Akira grabs Mona (ignoring his meow of protest) and stands back up. "We should get back home," he says. "Do you have anywhere else to go, Mona? Or do you want to come back with us?"

"I suppose I could come with you," Mona says. He manages to imply from his tone that he's doing the two of them a huge favor by agreeing, but Nanako _thinks_ she hears a little bit of relief. 

"Cool," Akira says. "I can't wait to explain to Dojima how we found a talking cat."

"That's my dad," Nanako explains to Mona.

"You won't have to," Mona says. "Most people can't understand me. Not unless they've been into the metaverse."

"I wonder if that whole thing with the fog would count?" Akira says as he starts to walk, looking mostly at Nanako.

"I don't know," she says thoughtfully. "I mean, the town didn't _completely_ merge with the TV World."

"It got pretty close," Akira says, and Nanako suddenly has to bite her tongue to stop from laughing at the baffled expression on Mona's face. 

"I guess we'll just have to find out when we get home," she says.

They walk back, talking more with Mona--or Morgana, which is apparently his real name--as they go. He's deeply interested in how Akira had gotten his Persona five years ago, and also reassures both of them that he doesn't think there's anything weird about how Nanako had gotten hers. If anything, he seems a little skeptical of the way Akira had confronted his own Shadow.

(Nanako feels a little bit less reassured when Morgana admits that he can't really remember how he knows any of this--or much of anything else, for that matter--but tries not to worry too much)

They talk about the place they'd just been, which Morgana calls a Palace, and explains to both of them that this is a place where the distorted desires of a human's heart take form. That in this case, it seems like Ishikawa must have been feeling trapped and unhappy with her job and her life for a while. Then the incident with Akira (which Nanako is happy to see absolutely outrages Morgana when he hears about it) would have sparked everything distorted in her heart into a full out Palace.

"It seems kind of sad," Nanako says tentatively. "Is there a way to help her, or...?"

"You want to help her?" Morgana asks.

"Well," Nanako says. "Yes? She is my teacher. And if she's feeling that sad and upset, I want to help."

Morgana thinks this over for a couple seconds, his tail flicking back and forth. "It might help this guy, too," he says.

"Am I 'this guy'?" Akira asks.

"Yes," Morgana tells him. "If we steal this teacher's Treasure, that _should_ collapse her Palace, too. And--"

"Hang on a second," Akira says. "Treasure?"

"It's the source of the distortion," Morgana says. "If you get rid of that, they have a change of heart. No more distortion, no more Palace. And if that whole assault thing was what sparked it in the first place, maybe she'd even be willing to take back her testimony after."

"Do you think so?" Nanako asks.

"Worth a try," Akira says, and although he's obviously trying to keep his cool, Nanako sees the spark of excitement on his face. "If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But if it _does..._ "

They turn around a corner, bringing them up to their own street. "If it does," Nanako says to him. "Then you could stay."

Akira grins, then points forward to the house. "Hey," he says. "That car, in the driveway, isn't that--"

"It's Yu's!" Nanako says. "What's _he_ doing in town?"

Akira doesn't answer. Instead, after sharing a quick look, both of them start moving faster. By the time they get inside, bursting through the door to find Nanako's dad and Yu sitting in front of the TV and talking, both of them are running.

"Slow down," her dad says, as both of them stop in the doorway, Nanako panting. "Something happen?"

Both of them try to explain at once, talking over one another so much that it's obvious that neither of the other two can understand a word. Nanako's dad holds up a hand (Yu is very obviously trying to hold back laughter), and when both of them eventually take the hint and stop talking, he says, "One at a time. What happened?"

"Guess who has a Persona," Akira blurts before Nanako can get a word out, beaming as he says it.

"Nanako?" Yu asks immediately, jumping to the correct conclusion.

"Yeah," Akira says. He lifts Morgana up so that the animal dangles out in front of him. "And also this cat."

Yu makes a valiant effort, but only makes it about five seconds into the dead silence that follows before he loses the fight to keep from bursting out into laughter.

-//-

_April 11_

_Evening_

-//-

Yu's trip to Inaba had been intended as a kind of morale boost for Akira. He's heard plenty about the arrest by now, and had taken the drive from Okina City--where he's living while he finishes his last year of school there--to come for a surprise visit.

He had not expected for Akira and Nanako to come running in with Persona-related news and a talking cat.

"You guys have been in the TV World, then?" Yu asks, when he manages to get his initial, startled laughter under control.

"Nope," Akira says. "There's a new way of getting to the metaverse--"

"It's an app," Nanako adds.

"Right," Akira says, nodding emphatically. "And--"

"Hey," the cat (the _actual talking cat_ ) interrupts. "Are you guys just going to go telling everyone about this?"

"Well, yeah," Akira says. "It's Yu, we can't just _not_ tell him about stuff with Shadows and Persona." The cat is starting to squirm by now, so he puts it down. Shadow, the cat that either Akira or Nanako had adopted a couple of years ago (the story varies, depending which of them is telling it) comes over immediately to investigate. 

"How about you start at the beginning?" Yu suggests, as Shadow and the talking cat eye each other warily. 

"Yeah," Akira says, and launches into his story. 

Yu listens carefully to the entire thing, without interrupting or asking any questions. The thing is that he thinks he knows what this is. Not what's going on, or anything _helpful_ , but he's known for years now that Akira is going to have to face something like this eventually. Igor and Margaret had hinted heavily--and Lavenza had flat out confirmed to Akira, _several_ times--that he'll be invited back to the Velvet Room one day. No one has ever suggested that anything that follows will be at all easy.

And this is it, isn't it? This app with the butterfly, and Mementos, and the Palace with Nanako's teacher--

(Dojima, who has been listening with an expression of barely hidden incomprehension, and occasionally casting glances at the cat he doesn't seem to _entirely_ understand, focuses in when he hears how Ishikawa has been treating his daughter)

(Yu really does not envy that teacher)

\--this is all what the Velvet Room attendants had been talking about, isn't it? This is Akira's turn.

"So that's how it's going this year," Yu says at the end, when Akira has finally wrapped up his story and gone silent. Nanako has moved over to the couch and looks like she's about five minutes away from nodding off. She's visibly more tired than everyone else, although of course that does make sense after awakening her Persona.

"Looks like it," Akira says, not even trying to hide his excitement.

"Have you checked to see if the Velvet Room is back?" Yu asks. 

"Not yet. I think I might swing by on my way to school tomorrow, though."

"Good thinking," Yu says. "I might come with you, if that's okay."

Akira nods, then asks, "What about you? How long are you in town for?"

"I don't have any classes scheduled again until Thursday," Yu says. "I was planning to spend a couple nights." The plan had been to stay those two nights and see if he could help cheer up Akira, but it doesn't look like that's going to be necessary anymore. If anything, Akira looks like he's about to vibrate out of his skin from sheer excitement.

(Of course he does. He looks like he's about to go plunging headfirst into trouble, so why wouldn't he be excited?)

Nanako, on the other hand, looks like she's about dead on her feet, so they don't talk much more about plans that night. Akira manages to get Dojima's permission to keep Morgana in the house until they figure out what's going on with him, and then Nanako heads up to bed. As soon as she's gone, Dojima changes the subject completely.

"Akira," he says. "I know you're excited about everything that happened today, but there's something you should know."

Akira's smile flickers in the face of Dojima's suddenly serious tone, then fades. "Is this about the probation?" he asks.

Dojima nods, and Akira comes reluctantly over to join him where he and Yu are still sitting in front of the silent TV. "Did something happen?" he asks.

"I got official confirmation of where you'll be staying this year," Dojima says. "And when you need to leave."

"When?" Akira asks.

"May first," Dojima answers, and it seems to Yu like he's watching Akira carefully. "I have the rest of the information here, you can look it over for yourself." He reaches back behind him for his work bag and pulls out a thin folder, which he passes over to Akira. Yu, curious despite himself, shifts over so he can see as well.

The information shows that he'll be relocated to Tokyo, which doesn't come as a surprise to any of them, as far as Yu can tell. They'd known already that he'd likely be sent to a city. But the rest of it is new, and Akira pages slowly through the information on his temporary guardian for the next year, and where he'll be staying for the duration.

Eventually he turns to Yu. "You grew up in Tokyo," he says. "Do you know anything about where any of this is?"

Yu gestures for Akira to hand everything over, and then reads through the details himself. He vaguely recognizes the neighborhood, Yongen-Jaya, although he's never had a reason to go down there himself. The name of the man that has somehow or other ended up being assigned as Akira's guardian is--unsurprisingly--completely unknown. Tokyo's a big place. Akira's going to be stuck with a stranger for at least the next year.

"It's not a bad neighborhood, from what I've heard," Yu says after a while. "Kind of low key. I don't think you'll hate it."

"I mean," Akira says. "I hate that I'm leaving, no matter where I'm going. This is home. I don't want to be anywhere else." He takes a breath, and gestures for Yu to give the papers back. "But I have until the end of the month, right? I don't have to leave Inaba until then?"

"From what I've heard," Dojima says. "They're having a hard time finding a school willing to take a transfer student with a criminal record on short notice."

"Good," Akira says. "Perfect. Hey, Morgana?"

"What?" the cat asks.

"Do you _really_ think that if we can steal Ishikawa's--what do you call it, the Treasure--do you really think she'll recant?"

"I think there's a way better chance of it happening after we steal her Treasure than there is now," Morgana tells him.

"Then that's the plan," Akira says. "We steal the Treasure, change her heart, and _maybe_ , if we get it done before the end of the month, she'll take back her testimony and I won't have to leave."

"We should tell Nanako too," Morgana says, and both of them go running immediately upstairs.

In the silence that follows, Dojima looks over at Yu. "This is about to get more complicated than I want it to," he says. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," Yu says, without hesitation. "It absolutely is."

-//-

_April 12_

_Early Morning_

-//-

Akira dreams of the Velvet Room that night.

He's back in the same prison cell he had been when he dreamed of Lavenza, but she's not here now. Instead, in the middle of the room and cut off from Akira by the cell door in front of him, is Igor. He's sitting behind an ornate looking desk, legs crossed, smiling in a way that sends all the hair on the back of Akira's neck stand up. 

"Welcome," the man says, in a voice that is somehow deeper and more foreboding than Akira ever would have imagined. "To my Velvet Room."

"Right," Akira says, wrapping a hand around one of the bars in front of him, and peering around into the corners. "Uh--hello."

There's no one else in the room. It's just him and Igor, and the heavy weight of Akira's knowledge that Lavenza _should_ be here too.

"You've entered into a dangerous game," Igor tells him. 

"Yeah," Akira says. "I'm catching onto that." He thinks, again, of Lavenza. Something in him hurts. "But--can you tell me if I'm on the right track? Am I going in the right direction _at all_?"

Igor's expression is almost impossible to read. "Play the game," he says. "And if you do it right, you'll find your answers at the end."

And with that last piece of cryptic not-quite-wisdom, Akira suddenly wakes.

His eyes fly open and he stares up at the ceiling of his dark bedroom. For a second he's disoriented, confused why he's folded up on the couch, and why there's something heavy on his stomach. Then he remembers that Yu is staying in his room while he's here, that he'd offered to take the sofa, and that Morgana had decided to fall asleep on top of him. Right. 

He shifts as much as he dares without risking waking up Morgana, and listens to the sound of Yu breathing from the other side of the room. So that's how this is going to be? A jail cell of a Velvet Room, with no Lavenza?

Well--

(Something in him is hurt and raw)

Well screw that. He decides then and there that he's not going back into the Velvet Room without her. He is going to _find her,_ and they are going to go back into the Velvet Room _together._

Together or not at all.

But step one, before he can even start trying to figure out where she might have gone, he has to make sure that he is going to be able to stay in Inaba. And no matter how thin of a hope it seems, that means trying to get through Ishikawa's Palace to change her heart.

He shifts slightly, just enough to be able to reach out to the table nearby and grab his phone. The time on the display reads 4:31, which makes Akira feel tired just looking at it. Most nights he'd have rolled over and gone straight back to sleep, but tonight his brain is buzzing too much for that. Instead, and not expecting an answer at this time of the morning, he texts Yusuke.

> **Yusuke**
> 
> So I have an update about my probation. I got the name of the guy I'm going to be staying with, and an address
> 
> And it's supposed to start at the end of the month
> 
> I might actually have a way to get out of it, though? It's a longshot but LONG STORY me and Nanako met a talking cat who has some ideas
> 
> A talkng cat?
> 
> LONG story. Why are you awake?
> 
> Also a long story, although probably not as long as yours?
> 
> You stayed up painting
> 
> ...
> 
> Yes I stayed up painting
> 
> We will have to sit down and talk things over. I'll call after school?

Akira puts the phone back down again on the table, feeling slightly better after the talk with Yusuke. He doesn't know what his best friend is actually going to be able to do from all the way in Tokyo--if he'll even be able to do anything at all--but just the idea of talking it over helps.

(He still doesn't sleep for the rest of the night. He still stays up, worrying)

Yu is visibly amazed, a couple hours later, when he gets up and finds Akira already awake.

"I can't remember the last time I didn't have to wake you up in the morning," Yu says. 

"I had a weird dream about the Velvet Room and couldn't get back to sleep," Akira says. Yu nods like this makes sense without any further explanation, and then carefully levers Morgana off Akira and onto the floor. 

"You have school this morning," he says. "Right?"

"Well," Akira says. "Yeah, but--"

"School first," Yu says. "Palace later."

"Oh come on," Akira complains. "I have a time limit, Yu, we _have_ to get through the Palace before the end of the month."

"And you can work on that after school," Yu says patiently. "You can't spend more than a few hours in the TV World anyway without getting tired anyway, right?"

"I mean..." Akira has to admit that's true. "Yeah."

"This will probably be the same," Yu says. "It'll be fine."

(Akira mostly believes him)

(Judging by the look on Yu's face, he only mostly believes himself)

"I'll meet you after school and we can all go together," Yu adds.

Akira allows himself one last, heartfelt groan, more for show than anything else. Then he gets up and starts getting himself ready for school. Yu nods, and goes to the desk to work on what looks like his own studying.

(Show off, Akira thinks)

Morgana is awake by this point, sitting on top of the ancient TV--solely used for retro gaming these days now that Akira is emphatically too tall to use it for TV World trips--and washing his face with his paw. 

"Is it okay if I come with you to school?" he asks Akira.

"Do you want to?" Akira asks.

"You can't take a cat to school," Yu says, without looking up.

"I'm not a cat!" Morgana protests, which _does_ make Yu look up at him.

"You're not?"

"I'm human," Morgana says, managing to sound more than a little hurt by the surprise in Yu's voice. "I just... got stuck like this."

"How?" Yu asks.

Morgana mumbles something that sounds like _don't remember_ , and Akira exchanges a look with Yu.

 _'Shadow?'_ Akira mouths. ' _Like Teddie?'_

Yu shrugs and mouths back _'Maybe?'_

It doesn't really seem like Morgana would be open to to hearing that right now though, so neither of them says this out loud. Instead, Akira dumps some stuff out of his school bag and gestures toward it. "You can come to school with me," he says. "Just don't get caught, okay? I think I'm in enough trouble right now as it is."

"Oh look," Yu says. "We've found it. The point where you decide you're actually in enough trouble and don't need anymore."

Akira snorts and waves a dismissive hand, then grabs his now Morgana filled bag, and heads downstairs.

-//-

_April 13_

_Afternoon_

-//-

The next week is one of the busiest that Akira has ever been through. Every day after school, he and Morgana head straight from Yasogami to Nanako's school, where they usually meet up with her just inside the gates. Since the elementary school gets out earlier than the high school does, most of the students have cleared out by the time the three of them meet up. Then it's straight into the Palace, where they spend the rest of the afternoon fighting.

Yu comes with them for the first few days, and again on Sunday when he's off school, but the rest of the time it's just Akira with Nanako and Morgana. They make slower progress on the days when Yu isn't there, just because of sheer numbers, but the Shadows aren't actually so strong that Akira and Morgana can't handle them alone. Nanako's Persona turns out to be a navigation type that is amazing at getting them safely through the Palace, but can't fight at all.

In other circumstances, Akira thinks, he would have kind of liked exploring the Palace. It's _different_ from the TV World, and it feels more like staging some kind of heist, or (more thematically appropriately), a prison break. They fight through all kinds of different places--floor after floor of cells, a prison yard surrounded by walls and barbed wire, a cafeteria full of Shadow-prisoners and cognitions (which Morgana explains, and weirds absolutely everyone out). And then finally, they get to what has to be the end.

(During all this time, Akira does not revisit the Velvet Room once. The door is back where it had always been when he was in elementary school, but Akira sticks to his determination not to go back until he finds Lavenza)

The very last part of the prison they get to are the isolation cells. They've criss-crossed their way through the whole facility, following directions that come partly from Nanako and her Persona, and partly from a couple of maps they're lucky enough to find along the way. They've stolen security passes from Shadows, unlocked off limits areas, and finally they're in the place where the Treasure is.

Or at least, the place that Morgana claims is the Treasure. It looks like a shifty kind of blob thing, which kind of disappoints him until Morgana explains about the calling card.

He is instantly on board with the idea, although Nanako takes a little bit more convincing.

(It's kind of silly, she says when Morgana first floats the idea of the Phantom Thieves past her)

(Akira and Morgana wear her down eventually, until finally she rolls her eyes and caves)

She's the one that's going to have to send the calling card. Since Ishikawa is a teacher at her school, it just makes the most sense for her to sneak into the staff room early before school and leave the card there. 

"I'm a little nervous," she admits, as they had home on the day they find the Treasure. "What if I get caught?"

"Hey," Akira says, putting an arm around her shoulder. "We've been sneaking around her Palace all week. You're doing great sneaking around."

"You are," Morgana pipes up from Akira's bag. "You're doing really well."

"I guess," Nanako says. "It's just--that's in the metaverse. This is the real world. It's easy to sneak around Shadows, they don't pay any attention. But if I get caught in there..."

She's worried, Akira can tell, and for a second he hesitates as he considers what to do. On the one hand, he could probably handle this himself. The staff room is on the first floor, and it wouldn't be that hard to get a window open, hop in, leave the card, and run back out. On the other hand, he doesn't think Nanako is actually _scared_ so much as she is _nervous._ And he kind of thinks that it's his responsibility as pseudo-older-brother and also newly minted leader of the Phantom Thieves to sort of encourage her into the kinds of trouble he thinks that she can handle. And this definitely falls into this category.

"If you get caught in there," he says, keeping his voice deliberately casual, like this is no big deal, like he has no doubt whatsoever that she can handle this (he doesn't). " _If_ you get caught, then you can come up with some reason for being there, like asking for help with an assignment."

"Do you think that'll work?" Nanako asks.

"I do," Akira says. "But if you're worried, you can always just book it."

That startles a laugh out of her, and she nods determinedly. "I don't think running away is going to work," she says. "But I can come up with some excuse, I think."

"You got this," Akira says. 

"I can come with you too," Morgana volunteers. "In case you need a distraction."

Nanako's face absolutely lights up behind her mask, and Akira mouths _thank you_ at Morgana as soon as she's not looking. Nanako's been dropping hints all week that she'd like to bring Morgana to school with _her_ once or twice, but so far Dojima has absolutely put his foot down.

("Akira's allowed," Nanako had complained at first.

("Akira is not _allowed_ ," Dojima had corrected her. "Akira is intentionally ignoring the fact that he's been told to leave the cat at home."

(Akira, who had at that moment actually been sitting at the kitchen table and pretending very hard to be reading something on his phone so he could claim he hadn't heard that last part, kept quiet)

"I'll bring him out with me when we leave for school tomorrow," Akira says. "And then hand him off to you when we're away from the house."

Nanako nods, but makes a thoughtful noise at the same time. "Do you think it would be better to do it tomorrow?" she asks. "Or should we wait for Saturday, so Yu can come down and help?"

They all consider this.

"We don't have any idea how strong Ishikawa's Shadow will be," Morgana says at last. "We're telling her that we're coming to take her Treasure, and it might be better to have more help if she tries to stop us."

"Okay," Akira says. "Then I'll let him know, we'll leave the calling card on Saturday, and go after the Treasure on Sunday?"

"Perfect," Morgana says.

-//-

_April 17_

_Morning_

-//-

Yu leaves early in the morning, drives down to Inaba, and meets Nanako, Akira, and Morgana at the house. All three of them are sitting on the front steps looking tired, he can't help noticing, which is not a great sign considering what they're going to try and do today.

"You guys didn't get much sleep last night, it looks like," he says when he gets out of the car.

"Too nervous," Nanako says.

"Daiki called me at like one in the morning about some new show he's watching and _would not stop talking_ ," Akira says, rubbing his hands over his face. 

"I think Shadow was trying to seduce me," Morgana says glumly, staring at his paws.

All three of them look at him.

"What?" Morgana says defensively. "Maybe I'm very attractive to other cats."

"I wondered why she's been following you around," Nanako says. She at least looks distracted from her own nervousness, a little. "That's _sweet_ , Morgana."

"Sweet?" he protests, sputtering a little. " _Sweet_?"

"You might be cute together," Nanako says.

" _I am not a cat!_ "

Akira still has his hands over his face, but now he looks like he's trying hard to stifle laughter. "Let's just get going," he says, and sure enough there's a choked sound to his voice that is definitely a laugh. "The sooner we get there, the more time we have to get the Treasure."

(He takes a second to compose himself)

(Morgana looks _deeply_ offended)

"And also it sounds like Morgana needs a break from his girlfriend," Akira adds, standing up.

" _Akira!_ "

"We should probably walk," Akira says, ignoring this. "Morgana and I found this place you can hop the fence around the back, but it'll be easier to sneak in if we're on foot."

"Sounds good to me," Yu says. "Let's go."

So the three of them start walking, with Morgana hanging out of Akira's bag like usual. It's early enough that almost no one is on the streets, and their conversation as they walk is entirely about what they might be about to face when they go to steal Ishikawa's Treasure.

Morgana's the one that knows the most about how the Treasure is supposed to work, although even his knowledge is thin and patchy in places. Nanako's been keeping careful track of every Shadow they run into, and since Yu hasn't been there for most of the Palace, he listens as she rattles off details.

Akira keeps quiet, mostly, only adding a few clarifying words when one of the others gets overexcited and starts to lose Yu a little. 

They're almost at the elementary school when suddenly someone shouts Akira's name, and when Yu turns he sees a vaguely familiar face come running toward them. "Isn't that Daiki?" he asks the others.

"Yeah," Akira says. " _How_ does he have that much energy this early in the morning? I know for a fact he was up late last night."

Because he'd been texting Akira, Yu remembers.

"Akira!" Daiki shouts again. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," Akira says, coming to a reluctant stop. "Listen, Daiki, we're really in the middle of something. Is it okay if we talk later?"

"What are you in the middle of?" Daiki asks.

"Stuff," Akira says. 

"Oh hey," Daiki says. "You brought your cat." He gives Morgana a pat on the head. "What's up, cat man?"

"Are we going to be able to ditch this guy?" Morgana asks. 

"Rude," Daiki says, making a face at him. "So seriously, what are you guys all up to?" 

There's a couple seconds of silence.

"What?" Daiki asks, and then seems to realize. "Oh, the cat thing?" He shrugs. "If you want to keep it quiet that you have a talking cat, maybe don't have it talk so much. He says something like every time a teacher calls on you in class."

"Most people can't exactly hear him," Nanako says, sounding a little hesitant.

Yu frowns. "Not unless they've been..."

"In the metaverse," Akira finishes for him with a little groan. " _How_ did I forget that?" 

Right. Because Daiki had been the one that Akira, Yusuke, Lavenza, and Teddie had gone into the TV World to rescue five years ago. Yu hadn't put the pieces together himself, and he can tell by the look on Akira's face that he's kicking himself for not realizing it either.

"Am I missing something here?" Daiki asks.

"Yeah," Akira says, shoulders slumping a little. "Listen, Daiki--you remember when we were kids, that winter with all the fog, and then that one day Shadows started showing up in the real world?"

"Those weird monster things," Daiki says. "Yeah, what about them?"

"Well," Akira says carefully. "They're sort of coming back--"

"Back _here_?" Daiki interrupts.

"Not really," Akira says. "They're not--look, it's complicated. But they're not really in a place where anyone's going to be in danger from them, we just... need to go take care of them."

"Need any help?" Daiki asks.

"Are you planning to throw rocks at them again?" Akira asks.

Daiki laughs, and after a second Akira can't fight back a smile, either. Yu, watching the interaction, shakes his head at the two of them. He's never really understood the friendship that the two of them have developed over the past few years. It makes a kind of sense that at least Daiki would have stopped actually bullying Akira after being rescued by him from the TV World. Yu can even understand why an experience like that might have made Daiki try to be better than the Shadow version of himself he'd seen, and he knows that the two of them had started talking when they were the only ones in their elementary school _not_ effected by the fog five years ago. 

But it just doesn't make sense that they'd stayed friends after the fog faded and all that ended. Daiki is loud and prone to charging into anything and everything that catches his attention. He's athletic and doesn't seem to ever think things through, and _somehow_ despite all their differences, he's still the classmate Akira is closest to. They talk about TV shows, and have been on the school baseball team together for four years, starting when they got to middle school.

It's probably not any stranger than when Yu had made friends with presumed-delinquent Kanji during his year, but at least they'd had the advantage of being on the Investigation Team together.

"Yeah sure, I'll throw some rocks at them," Daiki says. "If it'll help."

"I was kidding," Akira says quickly. "We're fighting something a little bit tougher today, I don't think throwing rocks at it _is_ actually going to help."

"You sure?" Daiki asks.

"It didn't do anything five years ago," Akira points out.

"I guess not," Daiki admits. "But I could still--"

"We'll be fine," Akira assures him. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

Daiki looks uncertain for a second, then nods. "Sure," he says. "Yeah. See you at school tomorrow."

Something about the way that he says it rings slightly off to Yu, but Daiki _does_ wave and head back the other way, so he figures that it's probably fine.

And anyway there are a hundred other things to worry about right now, so Daiki is driven out of Yu's mind entirely by the time they get to the Palace. Akira, Nanako, and Morgana lead Yu through the sections they've already been through, sharing stories of close calls and near misses as they go. It takes them about half an hour to get back to where the other three had seen the Treasure. It's a tense time, made worse by the fact that sending the calling card has apparently raised some kind of alarm level a dangerous amount.

But they get there in the end, and find that the amorphous blob the others had described has been transformed into something thin and golden that Yu can't quite make out from where they are. And they can't get any _closer_ , because Ishikawa's Shadow is standing between them and it.

She's angry that they've come to steal from her, of course, and no one is at all surprised when the Shadow transforms from a relatively normal looking human to a kind of chained monster thing. 

"Could be worse," he says, after a couple seconds of observation. 

"I don't want to think about what could be _worse_ ," Nanako says. 

"It's fine!" Morgana says. "Come on, let's take her down!"

And so they charge, and the Shadow is more powerful than other ones Yu has seen so far in the Palace, but really not all that strong in the grand scheme of things. Most of his friends' Shadows had been stronger than this, and that's not even mentioning Adachi, or Izanami, or Hi-no-kagutsuchi. She has plenty of health, so it's a time consuming fight, and the less experienced Morgana isn't really doing as much damage as the rest of them, but Yu and Akira have both done enough metaverse fighting to keep Morgana healed _and_ do steady damage to the Shadow.

So they're making progress--slow, but steady progress--when suddenly something comes flying out of the air from behind them and hits Ishikawa's Shadow square in the middle of the forehead.

"Oh _no_ ," Akira says.

-//-

_April 17_

_Morning_

-//-

Daiki doesn't really know what's going on with Akira and his little sister and weird talking cat, but he's seen some weird stuff in this town and he's not too freaked out about it. The talking cat especially he thinks is pretty cool--pretty much everyone in their class knows about Akira sneaking a pet in by now, but no one would ever actually sell out their weird semi-delinquent classmate to the teachers, especially after all that BS with his assault charge and getting sent away to Tokyo.

(It is _technically_ Daik's fault that the whole class knows about the cat, because he'd noticed the little dude about a week ago from his seat a couple desks behind Akira, shot off his big mouth to some of the girls, who thought that sounded _cute_ , and the rumor had spread around all of class 2-B like wildfire)

(As far as Daiki knows, no one else has noticed that the cat talks, but whatever)

Anyway, _the point is_ that now he knows there's some weird monster stuff going on, and Akira is involved somehow, and Daiki doesn't really see any reason not to try and follow them and get himself involved. 

He _knows_ , although they very rarely talk about it, that Akira had saved his life when they were in elementary school. He'd saved him from what Daiki only dimly remembers, a kind of Roman Coliseum in a world full of fog and monsters, and an evil version of him that shouted _terrible_ things at him until Daiki hadn't been able to stand it anymore.

(He's... gotten better at being able to think about all that stuff, over the years. But for a long time, Daiki had spent random nights lying awake and staring at the ceiling, wondering if what the other him said is true. If he really is just a stupid jerk, so scared that other people might _notice_ he's an idiot, that he punched and shouted his way through anyone that looked weaker)

(...yes. The answer is _yes_ , all that is true, or had been, and even after five years of trying to be better he still worries that deep down he hasn't stopped being that kind of person)

So this is part of trying to be better. Akira had saved his life, and then he'd helped save the whole town, and unless Daiki is _really_ wrong about what he'd just run into, he's about to go fight something else to save someone again.

Normally, Akira is hard to sneak up on. They've gotten to be friends, through sharing classes and going to baseball practice and just... living in the same small town, and so Daiki knows that Akira is _very_ hard to get close to without being noticed. If the three of them and the cat hadn't been so obviously distracted by their own conversation, Daiki doesn't think he'd be able to follow them at all.

But they are, so he does, and when they get to the elementary school (of all the weird places), Daiki sees Akira do something on his phone, and suddenly they're not in front of the elementary school, but in front of some kind of big, gray prison.

Daiki freaks out a little bit at this point. He'll admit that. He completely freaks out, and by the time he's gotten himself under control, everyone else has moved on.

He doesn't know how to get back from where he is, so instead he goes in deeper. There are more monsters inside, but they all seem really focused on looking for someone else (probably Akira and all the rest of them), so they don't pay a lot of attention to Daiki. And when they do, he can kind of just run away as fast as he can, and that... sort of works out?

So anyway, what happens is that eventually he gets to a big open arena where Akira, his sister, their--cousin (maybe?), and what might or might not be a monster version of the talking cat are all fighting a big monster in chains.

Daiki does not even think before grabbing a chunk of rubble off the floor--which is starting to shake itself apart a little bit from the chaos of the fight going on around them)--and throws it as hard as he can at the monster.

Akira mutters something, then spins around to face Daiki. It looks more dramatic than usual because he's wearing the costume Daiki only ever sees on him when he's fighting monsters. His sister has one too, and even the cat is wearing a kind of bandana mask thing, Only the older guy is wearing what looks like normal clothes. "Seriously?" Akira says. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to help," Daiki says. 

"You literally can't," the cat says.

"Yeah, well." Daiki shrugs. "I guess I figured I'd think of something when I got here."

Everyone other than Akira gives him a look that is pretty much _how dumb can you possibly be,_ but Akira laughs out loud. "Of course you did," he says, and doesn't actually sound upset about it at all.

The older guy sighs. "You know what," he says, stepping out of the way of a monster attack and turning to Akira at the same time. "Sometimes I wonder how the two of you got to be friends, and then something like this happens and I realize you're the only two people I know that would think it's a good idea, and I kind of get it."

"Can we just focus on the fight for now, though?" the cat asks.

"The Shadow's charging up an attack!" Akira's sister shouts. "I think she's aiming at--"

One of the monster's long, heavy hands punches out of nowhere and comes straight at Daiki. He'd kind of been assuming the monster wouldn't straight up attack him, since none of the other ones have so far. But it _hurts_ when it hits him, and Daiki is left flat on his back with all the wind knocked out of him.

"Stupid children should stay out of places where they're not wanted!" the monster bellows, and Daiki is _immediately_ pissed off.

(He hates being called stupid)

"Yeah well you wait until I get out of here!" he shouts back at her. "You'll see, I'll--" The heck is he going to do when he gets out of this? "I'll figure something out! You wait and see!"

 _I think we've done more than enough waiting already,_ a voice in his head says. _Don't you?_

"No kidding," Daiki says, without pausing to question where the voice is coming from. "I fricking hate waiting."

 _Then let's not delay any longer_ , the voice says. _And forge our contract now, and let the world see the spirit of your rebellion._

Daiki has no idea what that means, but something deep down inside him knows that this is a good idea. He nods, and something fiery and excited bursts out of him.

"Persona!" he shouts. " _Fezzik!"_

He doesn't track too carefully what happens after that--he's way too excited to keep track of details right now--but every second of it feels _awesome_.

-//-

_April 17_

_Afternoon_

-//-

They beat the Shadow. She melts back into her more human like form and crouches huddled on the ground, shuddering like she's near tears. Akira goes to her, and after some encouraging gesticulation, Nanako goes with him.

They talk to her. She _does_ cry, then, and promises to be better.

"If you're not happy here," Nanako tells her. "Then go somewhere else. Find something that _does_ make you happy, but... you don't need to take it out on us. And the things you said about Akira... they're getting him into real trouble. Like--really _bad_ trouble."

"I know," Shadow Ishikawa says. "I--I can fix that. I will."

And then they take the Treasure, and Akira feels a little stab of pity when he sees that it's a teaching certificate. So that's where all of it had started? With a decision to get into a job that she hadn't really liked? Or had it been with the realization that a job she thought she'd wanted wasn't really going to bring her happiness? Either way, it had obviously twisted and distorted until all she could see was the way it made her feel, pent up and locked up in her own kind of prison, even worse than where Akira had been locked up when he was arrested...

He feels bad for her. He does.

And then the Palace starts to collapse, and everyone goes running out together, desperate to get out before they're trapped forever. Akira has to help Daiki, who is lagging a little with the effort of running after having awoken a Persona (and honestly, who would have seen _that_ coming? Daiki, of all people, with his own Persona). But they make it, and as soon as they're out of the prison Yu jabs at his phone screen to start the navigation back to the real world, and suddenly there they are. Sprawled out on the grass behind the elementary school and breathing hard as the automated voice of the metanav announces that Ishikawa's prison has been deleted.

"So--" Daiki forces himself up onto his elbow and looks around at the rest of them. "So, anyone want to explain what just happened?"

Akira laughs until his sides hurt, half because the question just seems so ridiculous after all that, and half out of sheer relief that they've gotten out of the Palace okay. "Yeah," he says, when the laughter finally peters out. "I'll tell you everything."

Yu takes Nanako and Morgana home, giving the two classmates some relative privacy to talk through what they need to. It takes some time for him to get through it all, but by the end of the story Daiki is enthusiastically offering to come with him for the next Palace.

"What makes you think there's going to be another one?" Akira asks.

"I dunno," Daiki says. "You're looking for that friend you said, right? It kinda sounds like you're expecting her to be somewhere like this."

It's not a bad point, Akira has to admit. "Well," he says. "I don't know when it'll be, or whose Palace it'll be, but--I'd be happy to have you fighting with us."

"Yeah," Daiki says. "We're friends, right?"

A much younger Akira would have met this statement with disbelief. Here and now, Akira only nods. "Yeah," he says. "We are."

Daiki looks like he's basically dead on his feet, so that's as much as they really get through at that point. Akira takes Daiki home, promises to answer any more questions he thinks of later, and then he heads back home. He's a little relieved to find hat Yu and Nanako have already explained everything to Dojima, so he doesn't have to go through it a second time, and instead is only subjected to a few pointed questions of the _but are you sure you're okay_ variety. Akira is okay, he is more okay than he's been in a long time, and Dojima seems reassured by this. 

"So is she really going to take back her testimony against you?" Nanako asks, when her dad has finally given up asking questions.

"I hope so," Akira says.

"It might take a little while," Morgana says. "I--don't think it would necessarily be instantaneous?"

"Good thing we finished early, then," Akira says. "And now we can start thinking about other things."

"What kind of things?" Yu asks, sounding wary.

That's fair. He's obviously known Akira long enough to know that being wary is the correct reaction in this situation.

"I still want to go looking for Lavenza," he says. "She has to be connected to the app and everything somehow, she _has_ to be. I don't know where to find other Palaces, but maybe we can check out the TV World, or Mementos, or whatever it's called these days. Plus if we go through there, I'm hoping we can figure out a way to get to Yusuke." He's been keeping his best friend updated on absolutely everything that's happened, and can sense Yusuke's frustration that he's too far away to be able to help. "We always used to be able to get back and forth between the TVs here and the one in his sensei's atelier just by walking, so I'm thinking we might be able to follow one of the train tracks now?"

"I might be able to help with that," Nanako says. 

"I'm counting on it," Akira assures her. "But obviously we haven't had time to worry about it while we were working on Ishikawa's Palace."

Nanako nods. 

"I think it might be tied to my memories somehow too," Morgana pipes up. "I don't really know how, but..." he looks thoughtful in a way that doesn't look entirely natural on his feline face. "It just... sounds familiar."

"Well it sounds like we have plenty of reasons to check it out," Akira says. "Your memories, finding Lavenza, and getting to Yusuke."

"It sounds like you have a plan, then," Yu says. "And it sounds like it's time for me to leave it to you guys."

This throws Akira, and he looks up at Yu in surprise. "Does that mean--you're done?" he asks. "You're done helping us?"

"I don't honestly think you need it," Yu says. "You're building a team, now. You have Morgana and Daiki to help fight, and an awesome navigator in Nanako."

"I mean," Akira says. "Yeah, but--"

"Plus you'll have Yusuke soon," Yu adds. "And..." He hesitates. "Akira, we've both known this was coming for a long time. We know that you were going to have to go through something at some point like what happened in the TV World five years ago. This is it, and after today, I know that you can handle it."

"You helped a lot," Akira says.

"You guys got all the way through the Palace by yourself," Yu says. "And I _know_ you could have beat that Shadow without me." He puts a hand on Akira's shoulder and looks him right in the eye. "If you ever run into something that you can't face on your own, you know that I'll come running. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think you're up for whatever you're going to face this year. Okay?"

Akira looks at him, and sees on Yu's face that he absolutely believes what he's saying. 

He says it with so much conviction that Akira believes it too. "Okay," he says.

-//-

_April 29_

_After School_

-//-

Two things happen on April 29th that make it a good day.

The first is that Akira comes home from school to find Dojima home uncharacteristically early from work, looking as happy as Akira has ever seen him.

"Well," he says, holding up a sheet of paper that Akira is too far away to see as he stands in the door pulling off his shoes. "It's official. Ishikawa has retracted her testimony against you, and without the alleged _victim_ \--" he says this with some real venom in his voice. "Without him being willing to step forward and testify, the case has been dismissed. The assault's been wiped from your record, and you're not going to be sent away for probation."

Akira shouts and pump his fist into the air. He'd hoped for this, he'd _believed_ it would happen after everything they did in the Palace, but--it's real now. It's real, and he doesn't have to leave. "So I can stay?" he asks. "Really?"

"Really," Dojima says. "I'm still working with a couple of agencies on keeping you here permanently, but I've been on the phone with a few agencies already today. Everyone's suddenly a lot more helpful now that they see you've been falsely accused. I don't know how long it's going to take to make things official, but for the time being at least it seems like I'll be getting temporary guardianship."

A flood of relief washes through him.

He's staying.

To celebrate this, he gets in touch with the rest of the Phantom Thieves and asks if everyone's available for a trip into Mementos.

It's not their first trip there, of course. In the time since they finished Ishikawa's Palace. They've been several times, mostly sticking close to the entrance so that Daiki and Morgana can get practice with Shadows that Akira's already more than strong enough to fight. A few times they've ventured out further, which is how they've found that there are a lot of parts of Mementos that they just can't get to yet--there are multiple levels to the place, and if they go deep enough, they eventually reach solid doors that just won't open for them.

Morgana has a theory that since this is--according to him-- _everyone's Palace,_ they'd need to be a much bigger part of the public consciousness before they'd be able to get farther in. 

More importantly, though, is the fact that they've realized that following the train lines can take them to different places, that the TV they go in through doesn't _have_ to be the same one they come out of. Akira's absolutely determined that they're going to eventually find a way to get to Yusuke, but so far they've been taking it slow and careful as they travel through Mementos, letting Nanako get a feel for it's shifting presence. 

As usual, they pick a random direction and start traveling, using the fact that _Morgana can turn into a bus, apparently_ to their advantage so they can cover more ground. Conversation ranges from serious discussion about the Shadows they're fighting here, to celebrating the fact that Akira isn't going to have to leave, to dumb jokes about the town they've all grown up in and that Morgana is still getting used to.

"I've been thinking," Morgana says after a while. "We should have codenames."

"Phantom Thieves isn't good enough?" Akira asks. "We need codenames on top of that?"

"Yeah!" Morgana says. "The Phantom Thieves is all of us together, but we should have individual codenames too."

"I think it sounds awesome," Daiki says. 

"See?" Morgana says. 

"It's like when you and Yusuke went into the TV World with Teddie and didn't want him to know who you both were," Nanako says to Akira. "If we ever run into anyone else, maybe it _would_ be a good idea."

He shrugs. "Sure," he says. "Why not?"

"So then you can be Trickster," Nanako says. "Just like back then. And Yusuke can be Fox if--when we find a way to get to him. And Morgana can be Mona, since that's the name he gave us in the beginning."

"I'm okay with that," Morgana says. 

"So that just leaves you two, I guess," Akira says, looking over at Nanako and Daiki, thinking about their Persona and their masks, trying to come up with a good idea for code names for the pair of them. Nanako's Persona is all paper and ink, a reflection of the way she's always kept such careful records of the Shadows in the metaverse. Daiki's is raw power in physical form, bigger than any of the rest of theirs. "We could use Quill for you," he tells Nanako. "That okay?"

"I like it," she says.

"What about me?" Daiki asks.

"Giant," Nanako says. "Your Persona's _big_."

He thinks it over for a second, then shrugs. "I can live with that," he says.

"Cool," Akira says. "So now we _all_ have codenames, everyone's happy, right? Now we--"

"Hang on!" Nanako says with sudden, tense urgency. "Mona, stop, _stop!_ "

"What's wrong?" Akira demands, as she suddenly jumps to her feet and goes running outside. "Na-- _Quill!_ "

She doesn't answer, instead calling for her Persona the second her feet touch the ground, and standing stock still for what has to be at least a full minute. 

"What's up with that?" Daiki mutters.

"No clue," Akira says, not even bothering to try and hide his concern. "I've never seen anything like that."

"There's someone here," Nanako says. "I think... I don't know who it is, but they feel... different."

"What does different mean?" Morgana asks. "Not someone with a Persona?"

"I don't know," Nanako says. "Maybe? But they're close, and I think they're hurt, and we need to go check it out!"

She takes off running then, not even bothering with the Mona-bus, and luckily she's not that tall or that fast, so it's not hard for the rest of them to keep up, but it's still a sudden, abrupt change from the _joking around about codenames_ attitude of a few minutes before. She takes them around a corner and then another one without hesitation, and then stops suddenly at the mouth of a small hall that dead ends after only about forty or fifty feet.

The rest of them stop when she does, peering down a space that's really too dark for them to make out details without the help they usually have from Morgana's headlights, and eventually Akira puts his hand on Nanako's shoulder.

"I'm going to go ahead and check it out," he says. "I'll be quiet, and I'll come right back. You guys wait here, okay?"

He moves forward without waiting for an answer, moving quick and quiet, straining his eyes behind his mask until he can make out a single figure on the ground, sitting slumped against the wall, looking _hurt_ in a way that's so visceral Akira can practically feel it himself. He inches closer, and finally, _finally_ comes close enough to recognize her.

" _Lavenza_ ," he say, and runs to her, dropping to his knees at her side, hardly breathing until he sees her eyes open. For a second her gaze is vague and cloudy in a way he _hates_ , but then it sharpens as she focuses on him. 

"Trickster," she says. "You came."

He can't believe he's found her, like this, without even trying. He puts his hand on her shoulder, just to check that she's real, and then when she _is_ , he can't stop himself from pulling her into a hug.

"Are you okay?" he asks, quietly.

"No," she says. "There's--a lot you need to know. Something bad happened, in the Velvet Room. To me, and to Igor, and..." she hisses in sudden pain, and Akira shakes his head.

"Later," he says. "Later, okay? We'll get you out of here, and we'll talk later."

"We?" she says.

"Yeah," he says. "We--I have a team now, I guess?" He shrugs and she actually _smiles_ , which is a relief considering how tired and hurt she looks. "We'll get you out, and then we can talk later."

"Okay."

"Okay," he says. "Okay..." And she's thin and light enough for him to carry her so she does, moving more slowly now as he heads back. 

They're not quite back within earshot of the others when Lavenza says, quietly, "Thank you."

"For finding you?" Akira says. 

(And he remembers, with absolute clarity, how afraid she'd looked in his dream of the Velvet Room)

"Yes," Lavenza says. 

"Yeah," Akira says. "Not finding you was never an option."

And _that--_ finding Lavenza and bringing her home--is the second thing that makes it such a good day. They head straight out of Mementos without doing any more exploration, and Akira apologizes profusely to Daiki when they're out of the TV and back in the Dojima house, and he's the only one that's not staying.

"I'm sorry," Akira says. "I'll tell you everything later--" Because he hadn't exactly kept Daiki up to date on the TV World before this year, but he's a part of the Phantom Thieves now. Things are different. "But I need to make sure she's okay before anything else."

"Sure," Daiki says. He hesitates at the door though, glancing back at the couch where Lavenza is lying. "That's... she was there too, right? Back in, uh--you know."

The coliseum.

"Yeah," Akira says. "She was there. She helped."

Daiki watches Lavenza for a second or two longer, and then nods. "Let me know if you need anything," he says. "And I hope she feels better."

"I will," Akira says. "I'll see you in school tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah," Daiki says. "See you then."

He turns and heads out, and Akira goes back to join Nanako and Morgana in helping Lavenza. He doesn't know what's going to happen, he doesn't know what already _has_ happened, or what she'd been talking about with the Velvet Room and Igor. But they're _going_ to find out. And whatever's wrong, they're _going_ to fix it.

They're the Phantom Thieves, now. Akira, Nanako, Morgana, and Daiki. Lavenza, maybe, if she wants to. She's taught him practically everything he knows about the metaverse--he doesn't think she'll hang back now. And Yusuke, too, as soon as they can find a way to get from their TV to his.

Whatever's going to happen is only just starting, Akira knows that. 

And now that they're getting the team back together, now that he doesn't have to worry that he'll be sent away from Inaba, he kind of can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

-//-

(Miles and miles away, in Tokyo, Sojiro Sakura gets a letter in the mail. The delinquent kid he'd reluctantly agreed to take in for the year has been cleared of all charges, and won't be coming to stay after all)

(Good, Sojiro thinks, as he tosses the letter away. It's not like he needs the trouble)

**Author's Note:**

> Daiki's Persona is, of course, Fezzik from the Princess Bride. Big, tough looking guy that can hit hard when he needs to but isn't as scary as he looks. And also there's a little bit of a rebel to everyone in that story, I think :) 
> 
> (Plus I love that movie so... yeah xD)
> 
> Anyway, I don't know how well this actually turned out, there are some parts I love, some parts I think are meh, I would love to hear what you guys think! If there's enough people that enjoy it, I'd love to keep going eventually and cover the rest of the year. There's still a few members of the Phantom Thieves that haven't joined the Team yet, we're only one Palace in, I have some.... _interesting_ thoughts about what the rest of the canon-Phantom Thieves are up to since Akira never shows up in Tokyo...
> 
> So yeah, it wouldn't be for a while but I'd love to come back to this, if anyone wants to read it :)
> 
> But for now, happy one year anniversary to this series, BIG THANK YOU to everyone that's been reading and commenting and kudos-ing, and whatever, you guys are all awesome, I will see you in (probably) TWO weeks with the next chapter of Forearmed, because today is my birthday and Christmas is Friday and I think I'm going to be very busy with all that for a little while.


End file.
